cd drive will not eject or recognize disc

my mid-'09 whitebook has a dvd in it that will not eject. there's no disc image on the desktop and i can't eject from the dvd player either... i've tried shutting down and booting up, and restarting....

this is my first issue with this computer so i'm pretty worried...

is there any way i can force it to eject? i mean, without damaging anything...

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